When most of the coastline is erased, people are zipping around NYC in bass boats, and the South Pole is an exotic vacation spot, blame yourself
A climate change preview: Trees at the South Pole, 60 feet of sea-level rise.
Trees growing near the South Pole, sea levels 20 meters higher than now, and global temperatures 3 to 4 degrees Celsius warmer. That is the world scientists are uncovering as they look back in time to when the planet last had as much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as it does today.
Using sedimentary records and plant fossils, researchers have found that temperatures near the South Pole were about 20C higher than now in the Pliocene epoch, from 5.3 million to 2.6 million years ago.
Many scientists use sophisticated computer models to predict the impacts of human-caused climate change, but looking back in time for real-world examples can give new insights.
The Pliocene was a “proper analogy†and offered important lessons about the road ahead, said Martin Siegert, a geophysicist and climate-change scientist at Imperial College London. “The headline news is the temperatures are 3-4C higher and sea levels are 15-20 meters higher than they are today. The indication is that there is no Greenland ice sheet any more, no West Antarctic ice sheet, and big chunks of East Antarctic [ice sheet] taken,†he said.
Fossil fuel burning was pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere extremely rapidly, he said, though it took time for the atmosphere and oceans to respond fully. “If you put your oven on at home and set it to 200C the temperature does not get to that immediately, it takes a bit of time, and it is the same with climate,†Siegert said, at a Royal Meteorological Society meeting on the climate of the Pliocene.
Wait, what? Who was pumping fossil fuels into the atmosphere back then? Is this saying that someone was using fossil fuels as an energy source millions of years ago, or just shoddy writing? Because we all know that the climate was fully natural all those millions of years ago. So, why can’t it be mostly/solely natural now?
About 100 million years ago an even more extreme climate occurred. In the Cretaceous period, carbon dioxide levels were 1,000 ppm. Antarctica still sat over the South Pole, but the region was warm and covered in great forests, the stumps and soil of which have been preserved as fossils in places like Alexander Island.
“If we keep carbon emissions going at the current rate, by the end of the century we will have 1,000 ppm,†said Siegert. The low 280 ppm level of carbon dioxide in the run-up to the industrial revolution was rooted in carbon being removed from the air by plants and animals and then buried. “It formed coal seams, gas and oil fields. And what we have been doing for the last 150 years is digging it all up and putting it back into the atmosphere, it’s crazy.â€
First, it is unscientific language. “carbon emissions” is a political advocacy phrase. Second, what caused the CO2 rise 100 million years ago? Did dinosaurs drive pickup trucks? Then never really explain why everything is different now in their attempt to provide a bit of scaremongering.
